so after my light fixture fell into my tank.. i became very thankful that i got an "aquatic fixture" that happened to have a splash cover and sealed bulbs... wow i never thought THAt would happen...

yes it was an exciting day. tank maintenance on all my tanks and the removal of the center piece of driftwood that is not located in my pea puffer nano. i planted some great specimens of blassi and moehlmanni that i hope will take to the new environment... i think they are gorgeous plants and so happy to have them in there. with the removal of the DW i was able to expand my sunoganthus belem farm and moved my tonina fluvalitis towards the center left of my tank.. i notice they do not like ot be crowded and demand center stage. hopefully they do well...panantal is down to three tops, base stems melted and were discarded. i realized that these like to be planted in substrate hopefully they bounce back from the dead.

at the end of the day i would like to welcome the new additions to my tank:
- black neon tetra crew (5); these guys are beautiful as much as they are gangsta! love em.
- khuli loache (2); awesome freaky looking guys, totally at home in a heavily planted situation... now if i can only find them!
- juvie bristle nose pleco.. at $2.75... i could not resist... of course i have no idea where he is as he is blended in somewhere probably by the filter intake... i'm sure when he gets big i wil have to move him to my new 75 tank my friend is giving to me.. doh!

Could be many reasons, but I would up my dosing a bit on the iron and potassium and see how that helps at all. Or, they just look yellow in the pic because they are right dead center under the lighting. ;D

Looks good to me. The growth seems to be a little more full and compact. Or, you do a good job trimming! Either way, it looks great!

thanks for the tips guys... been doing the grind at work again this week, sorry i haven't been able to reply. the only time i'm able to check out the forum is on tapatalk on my way to work and i can't update my journal from there lol.

i planted some awesome plants i got from on Monday... i'm honored to have his crypts in my tank. I just hope i can do them justice. thank you nick!

zach your barclaya zachfolia is a beast! and has multiple blood red fronds... you can catch a glimpse of it in the pic above... i have since moved it to the back center of my tank and can't wait for this thing to explode out of the green! thank you zach!

good night FTS 04-04-12

on another note, i was tending to my emersed setup on monday as well.... thought i'd post some pics of the plants' progress. shoutout to mah man gordonrichards... as most of these crypts are his!

the only way i can grow a hygro... emersed! lol

that yellow guys on the bottom left is not a result of a nutrient deficiency... its a result of a hitchhiking sunset hygro :O

its been a while... super busy overworked underpaid gaah!! sorry for playing the violin lol. well at least i have my tanks. although i haven't had time to do my weekly w/c in 2 weeks now.. i moved stuff around and topped off the tank.

progress fts 04/25/12

on a side note, i am continuing EI dosing 3X a week with rest days in between without scheduled waterchanges, jus top offs. my GH is 6-8 and my KH is less than 1. As a result of my co2 my and lack of buffering my pH may be swinging 6.0-6.6 in an extreme case. i am sure this is most apparent during waterchanges since my tap pH is 7.

i fear this is not good for the fisheys lol. as i have noticed my cory hasboras swimming weird and sudden lack of activity in the tank i feel like i need to add some buffering to my water to prevent sudden swings in pH. i will try baking soda in small increments till i get a KH of at least 2-3.

Speaking for myself, I don't believe in buffering....either the fish live or they don't. They should be able to tolerate those conditions, but if you go back to changing the water on occasion, it may allow them a little time to adjust to less frequent water changes. Considering catfish are genetically able to swim around in all God-awful, low pH, poorly oxygenated, murky filthy conditions, the key seems to be conditioning them slowly to get used to those types of conditions. You may be going a bit fast. That's how I did it.....I gave up buffers over a decade ago because it never really helped me in the long run and too difficult to manage on a consistent basis.

Hello to all my PT friends... its been a while, super busy to say the least. But thankful the economy seems to be lifting up finally.

My 20L is still going. Had an incident with the kids (nieces/nephews) this past June when they decided to "go fishing" in my tank lol. Lost a few plants and was upset for little bit. Nonetheless, decided to edit out the weedy stems and for the most part its mostly crypts. He newest addition is some star repens i planted from my emersed trimmings.

Oh man!! Such incidents really tear my heart out. Your tank looks real nice before that. I like it a lot. Looks really really natural and peaceful to look at. hope things will grow back. I really like the crypts. Hard to find at my lfs. there are some, but they aren't for sale.

Oh man!! Such incidents really tear my heart out. Your tank looks real nice before that. I like it a lot. Looks really really natural and peaceful to look at. hope things will grow back. I really like the crypts. Hard to find at my lfs. there are some, but they aren't for sale.

thanks O. i lost some fragile needy stems namely my tonina fluvalitis "lotus" and my L. pantanal which is a real shame as they were so beautiful. dreadfully difficult to grow (for me) no less. after the kids shredded my plants (thankfully not uprooting my crypts) i saw it as a sign to take a break from super needy and fast growing stem plants... its a lot of gardening for a 20L.

nowadays i like the slow pace of my crypts and ever since i cleared my tank, i am starting to discover tiny plantlets and offshoots of crypts i thought melted a long time ago lol. crypts are really amazing plants.

its a shame they are not readily available in your parts, where are you from?

11-15-12 FTS
Check out the black areas on my foregroud. I was thinking of giving the ole parva carpet another shot. I used to have a nice one going but it crashed back in June. What do you guys think? :O

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